- In this video, we'll review a few key strategiesof mine on how to find and use materialsfor best results in your scenes.These are all pretty simple tips when you're preparingyour 3-D file for materials and rendering.Let's jump ahead and take a sneak peekat what the rendering with look likewith all the final materials on.I've got this pre-rendered here, so you can seewe still don't have trees or people yet.Those are coming later, but this rendering does includeall of the materials in the entire scene.Let's go ahead and close it for now.I'll sort of switch over to the perspective viewby double-clicking on the viewport tab.

The key number one is the level of detail requiredis surprisingly low.For example, it's pretty sloppy in the areas you don't see.This is the underneath section.We can zoom around here, so a lot of the shapesare pretty simple forms.Now, the reason we can get by with thisis the environment is extremely dynamic,and a lot of tiny edge details are completely lost.The point I want to make is a strong designwith really good lighting can rescuean occasional bad materials.

Now, this is not really a material,but I'm going to show you my topographyand how easy this was to create.I'm going to turn off the topography layer,and then, here are the construction curves,so this entire lawn area was made by the six curves.Actually, I just created one, copied it five times,and then made slight changes to the others.I was able to create this rolling landscape,so with those selected, I just went to Surface, Loft,hit OK, and that's exactly how I made the topography.

A lot of times things are easier than you think.Let's go ahead and get rid of that.Turn my other topo back on,so that brings up key number two,and that's having a library of quality materials.It's important that you don't try to redesignmaterials on every project, so this is a great wayto work smart but not hard.By materials, I mean these can bewith or without texture maps but usedby V-Ray on every project.Let's take a look at our Material editor,and you'll notice I have quite a few in this scene.

We talked about some of these but not all,but that just shows you there's a lotgoing on in this scene.On the next project, I may be able to use half of theseand save a tremendous amount of time.The key, though, is you have to be a little bit organizedand be able to find those on that next project.Moving down to key number three,I recommend you make your own images.A great way to do this is take photographs of a material.Just be sure that there's no shadows crossing themand the light is as even possible.You can also make a material from scratch in Photoshop.

Key number four would be sometimes good enough can be great.By that, I mean you don't have to doadditional rendering tests if the improvementis becoming very, very small.A lot of times you can tweak itwith the V-Ray levels commandor just take it into Photoshop.This entire process is calledpost-processing, or post for short.We'll cover that later, as well.Key number five is almost all materials are appliedin the same general way.We first select a piece of geometry,and then we select the material to get applied to that.

If it looks okay, you're actually done.Occasionally, you will need to adjust the tilingby using a UVW mapping widget for more control.Finally, you might have to tweakthe bump or displacement settingsif you're looking for a little bitof a texture on that surface.My sixth and final key isit's really all about the design.Whenever you're working with materials,they can only go so far to hide a bad design.To help you focus on the design,we've been spending a lot of time renderingwith that override material so that we can focusnot only on the forms but the camera exposure.

If you recall, that setting is locatedin the Global settings.Take a quick look here.Under Global switches, this is the Override materialthat will turn everything in the scene into the same shade.Let's close this and go back to the original list.We'll take a look at the rendering, as well.When rendering, keep in mind the job of all your materialis to make your design look good and more real.The material should be used to enhance your designof the form, the space, and the light,not cover up any of your shortcomings.

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Released

12/5/2014

A detailed rendering job can make your building models look more realistic and professional—and help sell clients on your ideas. This course teaches everything you need to know about rendering interior and exterior architectural scenes with Rhino and V-Ray. Using a pavilion of his own design, author Dave Schultze shows how to set up Sun, Sky, and V-Ray lighting systems; apply glass, metal, stone, and wood materials; and insert trees, grass, and people for additional scale and interest. Plus, learn how to use cameras and compositing techniques to add a sense of depth and realism to your designs.